Lights, Motors, Action!: Extreme Stunt Show
The Lights, Motors, Action! Extreme Stunt Show is a performance show at the Disney-MGM Studios theme park in Lake Buena Vista, Florida, USA.
Revolving around a series of high-octane stunts featuring automobiles, the show debuted at the park on May 5, 2005, as part of the Happiest Celebration on Earth festival at the Walt Disney World Resort, in honour of the very first Disney park, Disneyland, celebrating its fiftieth birthday. One aspect of the festival was each of the four Walt Disney World theme parks receiving a new attraction cloned from another Disney resort; the show was one of the star attractions at the Walt Disney Studios theme park at the Disneyland Resort Paris in France.
The show runs for just under 40 minutes and includes pyrotechnics, jet ski chases and physical stuntwork among the car work. The cars are followed by cameras, but the film shown to the audience on a billboard television screen is pre-recorded, and some shots are even from the Disneyland Resort Paris version of the show. This is to make the show appear as if it were a real movie shoot. For the duration of the celebration, Herbie, the Volkswagen from The Love Bug, makes an appearance in an intermission in the middle of the show, much to the delight of the audience.
The show arena features Mediterranean Village scenery, most likely from the south of France. The arena's construction forced The Disney-MGM Studios Backlot Tour at the theme park to be almost halved in length, as the arena was built inside the backlot tour's attraction footprint. Artifacts from the history of The Walt Disney Company include a corporate jet once used by Walt Disney himself to fly back and forth from California to New York for the final planning stages of the 1964-65 New York World's Fair, as well as survey the swampland in Florida to find the perfect location that was to become the Walt Disney World Resort.
Vehicles
The show has more than 40 vehicles featured in the show and backstage in the maintenance garage. The cars used throughout the show are highly modified Opels. The hero car is a custom-built design for the show, while the pursuit cars are Opel Corsas. The 3 different hero cars are all painted red, while the pursuit cars are black to easily allow guests to tell the difference between them. The show also includes specially designed cars that look identical to the others used in the show. Two of which are red "hero" cars. One has the interior situated backwards to allow the driver to appear as if he's driving in reverse, and the other has a seat and steering wheel bolted onto the side of the car, giving the appearance that the car has no driver in the driver's seat. One of the black "pursuit" cars is cut in half behind the front doors to give it the appearance of exploding during a scene in the show.
The cars, while they appear stock, are reinforced with rally car roll cages for driver safety. The cars are powered with 1,300 cc, 150 horsepower motorcycle engines mounted directly behind the driver's seat. Although said in the show that the cars are gas powered motorcycle engines, they are actually electric. This allows much faster acceleration as well as safety for the drivers, not having gasoline on board. There is also a sequencer that triggers a sound system to create the engine roaring sound effects.[citation needed] The cars have 4 gears in forward drive and 4 gears in reverse, allowing the drivers to accelerate to high speed going backwards. The car has a bump shift for easier gear shifting. The driver merely bumps the shifter forward to go up a gear, and back to go back a gear. In order to go in reverse, the driver twists the top of the shifter and bumps it forward, or backwards. The emergency brake automatically releases when the driver lets go. The show cars weigh just 1,322 pounds.
The drivers must wear driving suits just like professional racecar drivers. Because of this combined with Florida's notorious heat, a cooling system in the rear of the car pumps water through a series of tubes and into the driver's suit to keep him cool.
The show also features jet skis on the small canal at the front of the theater, and motorcycles which maneuver around the cars.
Many scenes of the show were inspired mainly by two films: Ronin and The Manchurian Candidate
Cut of Final Scene at Paris Attraction
Currently, the Final Scene is being setup as usual, but the Hero does not jump out of the building window and through the flames. It is unknown why the Paris version has cut this part of the scene. It is still shown on the final cut shown at the end of the show.
Attraction facts
- Grand opening: May 5, 2005
- Show length: 35 min
- Stadium Capacity: Approximately 5,000 guests
- Show Space: 177,000-square-foot show area
- Sponsor: Brawny/Georgia Pacific
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